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Our intention is to inform people of racist, homophobic, religious extreme hate speech perpetrators across social networking internet sites. And we also aim to be a focal point for people to access information and resources to report such perpetrators to appropriate web sites, governmental departments and law enforcement agencies around the world.

We will also post relevant news worthy items and information on Human rights issues, racism, extremist individuals and groups and far right political parties from around the world although predominantly Britain.

Friday 30 April 2010

Griffin unable to tell if radio caller was British

British National Party leader Nick Griffin said today he was unable to tell if a caller to a radio phone-in was British as he couldn't see what he looked like.

He told the man, who said three of his grandparents were born outside Britain, that he could class himself as "civically British" but not "indigenous British
His remarks came as he took calls from listeners on BBC Radio 4's The World at One.

During the phone-in, Sean Fowlston from Nottingham asked: "Would you be good enough to tell me whether I am British or not, given that three of my grandparents were foreign-born?"

Mr Griffin said: "It doesn't matter where on earth they come from, obviously I can't you see you down the radio."
He then added: "You're British."

But pressed why it would make a difference what colour the man was, Mr Griffin went on: "It would make a difference in particular, if he was what the BBC would call white, then I would assume from his name he was Irish, and I am part-Irish as well.

"We regard the Irish as completely part of Britain."

Asked why he would need to see him to know whether he was British or not, Mr Griffin said: "Because if I could see him I could tell whether his three ancestors were Irish or not.

Mr Fowlston said: "I was expecting that response."

He then asked: "If three of my grandparents were not ethnically British, would I be British?"

Mr Griffin said: "You would be civically British, yes absolutely."

Mr Fowlston said: "But not indigenous British?"

He was told: "No of course not."

During the phone-in Mr Griffin was asked if the Royal Family were "indigenous" British as their ancestors originally came from Germany in the 18th century.

Mr Griffin said: "Erm, well that was part of the Royal Family. They are a fairly old mixed-up bunch of Europeans, but they are fully integrated.

"Once you reach a stage where you simply can't tell, when the whole community regards someone as being part of the indigenous, that is when they are indigenous.

"That is the case in the Amazon jungle, why is it different here?"

Mr Griffin also defended his election leaflets, many of which feature his image alongside former Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

And he maintained his position that he could not talk about claims he had denied the Holocaust because of "ridiculously strict" European laws.

The BNP is fielding about 330 candidates in the General Election.

In an email to BNP supporters today, Mr Griffin revealed the party's funds were "stretched to the limit".

Seeking to build on Gordon Brown's "bigoted woman" blunder this week, Mr Griffin called for donations to fund newspaper adverts in key areas such as Barking and Dagenham, Stoke-on-Trent, Leicestershire, Manchester and Barnsley.
Asking supporters to "spare a paltry £20", he wrote: "Our activists are already at full stretch and we have no spare finances to fund extra campaign material, so what we want to do is to raise enough extra funds to place newspaper adverts in a whole range of key target areas up and down the country."

He went on: "Our existing funds are already stretched to the limit paying for the huge costs incurred in running a national election campaign.

"If we are going to make this happen, we need to dig deep right now. This could mean the difference between a breakthrough or not in the General Election."

The Independant

BNP supporters threaten to gatecrash debate

POLICE are on standby in the run-up to an election debate in St Austell tonight after British National Party supporters threatened the organisers of the husting because their candidate was not invited to attend.

Five would-be MPs will be attending an election husting at the Keay Theatre in St Austell tonight – the BNP candidate for the St Austell and Newquay seat, James Fitton, was not invited as his party is considered “too far to the right” for the organisers.
Mr Fitton was also not asked to take part in the BBC Town Hall debate which was aired live this week, and is still available to watch on BBC Iplayer.

The debate has been organised by Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) along with the Cornwall Trade Union Alliance to cater for those who work in front line services it will start at 6.30pm tonight.

Jessica Pearce, the PCS regional secretary, phoned the Cornish Guardian to tell the paper they had received “threatening” phone calls from BNP supporters.

“They phoned and got through to our 22-year-old receptionist and were very aggressive.

“They said that even though we had not invited them they would be attending and there was nothing we could do about it.

“We have phoned the police and they did say they would be present.

“I don’t know why they are acting like this, a lot of our members are part of the civil service and the public sector are not interested in the BNPs far right views.

“It would slow down the debate.”
Inspector for St Austell Police, Stuart Gibbons, said they were aware of it and were on standby should any disruption occur.
James Fitton said: "The PCS are fools. They called me and said I was a facist which is why I wasn't allowed on tonight.

"I then said 'surely by denying me attending tonight you're a fascist' and they hung the phone up on me.

"I'm still going to go. I was told by the PCS that I'd be arrested if I attended, but I can't see how or why I would be and it's not going to stop me."

The candidates who have been invited to the debate include Labour’s Lee Jameson, Liberal Democrat’s Stephen Gilbert, the Conservative candidate Caroline Righton and Mebyon Kernow’s leader Dick Cole.

This is Cornwall

County Durham teenager convicted of terror plot

A teenage white supremacist from County Durham has been found guilty of terrorism offences.

Nicky Davison, 19, was convicted of three separate charges of possessing records useful in committing or preparing acts of terrorism.

Newcastle Crown Court heard he was part of a white supremacist group called the Aryan Strike Force, with his father.
Terror manuals were found on computers at the home he shared with his mother in Annfield Plain last June.

The teenager's father, Ian Davison, has already admitted preparing for acts of terrorism and producing a chemical weapon, the deadly poison ricin, one of the world's most dangerous substances.

The pair will be sentenced together.
The court heard Nicky Davison helped his father administer the Aryan Strike Force website, which aimed to carry out terrorist operations and overthrow the government.

The former milkman's assistant, of Grampian Way, Annfield Plain, was a founder member of the web group set up by his 41-year-old father.

The jury at Newcastle Crown Court took 50 minutes to convict the teenager after hearing the group planned to fight against what it called the Zionist Occupied Government and believed the state had been taken over by Jews.

Racist father
Jurors heard a police raid at the home he shared with his mother and younger brother found copies of The Poor Man's James Bond and the Anarchist's Cookbook on two computers.

Nicky Davison denied any knowledge of the documents and the court was told a "mischievous" friend had downloaded them.
In his defence, Davison said he joined the group to please his racist father.
After the verdict, Det Supt Neil Malkin of Durham Police said: "Violent extremism will not be tolerated.

"The hard work carried out by officers to collect the wealth of evidence that has helped secure this conviction demonstrates Durham Constabulary's determination to disrupt extreme right-wing activity in all its forms.

"This has been a complex case requiring careful deliberation of the evidence by the jury over a period of three weeks and the successful conviction of Nicky Davison underlines the quality of the investigation."

BBC News

New immigration law turns Arizona into police state (USA)

Guilty until proven innocent. Or more to the point: illegal until proven innocent.

That's what the racist immigration law signed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer last Friday does to the people of that state. Now, anyone can be stopped by the police at any time and for no reason other than the color of their skin. They can be questioned about their immigration status and forced to carry papers 24 hours a day.

Ironically, it was Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, not exactly an immigrant advocate, who best defined the already infamous SB1070 as the "breathing while Latino law."

It "sounds a lot like the old 'driving while black' law," Smith correctly pointed out, referring to a time when African-American drivers were allegedly stopped by New Jersey State Police in inordinate numbers.

It seems that in Arizona - rapidly making a name for itself as the Alabama of the West - brown is the new black.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) asked the relevant questions: "Tell me, how does an undocumented person look? What does an illegal look like? And how far will one go to prove it?"

Obviously, in Arizona some are willing to go as far as ignoring the Constitution, trampling human rights and becoming a police state.

The new law forces the local police to question people about their immigration status if they suspect they are in the U.S. illegally. That's the same as saying if you "look foreign," you can be asked for "your papers, please."

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that SB1070 makes racial profiling and discrimination the law of the land in the state of the former maverick, John McCain.

While speaking about undocumented immigrants, the old senator once said, "We need to sit down as Americans and recognize these are God's children as well." It now appears McCain has joined the sorry conga line of immigrant bashers and become a big supporter of SB1070.

But let's not be too harsh on McCain's flip-flopping. He is after all fighting for his political life in a GOP primary against J.D. Hayworth, a conservative with extreme anti-immigrant views. And if in order to get Arizona Republicans to vote for him, the good senator has to betray God's children, so be it. Sad.

"Unfortunately, Arizona is just one example of the toxic climate immigrants now encounter," said Angela Fernandez, executive director of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

Yet, much to the chagrin of the menagerie of assorted proto-fascists, spineless politicians, white supremacists and professional hate-mongers that are salivating at the prospect of legal racial-profiling and discrimination against Latinos, SB1070 could be a blessing in disguise for immigrants.

For one, it has made clearer than ever that the foot-dragging on immigration reform by Congress and President Obama has to stop. Also, anger among immigrants and their supporters has injected a new militancy into the movement for immigrant rights.

Since Brewer signed the law, organizers have seen a huge rise in the numbers planning to join the nationwide demonstrations on May 1 - a designated day of activism for immigrant rights.

In New York, the two biggest rallies will take place at Union Square and Foley Square.

"The only way to respond to this un-American legislation and stem the ugly tide of criminalization of immigrants is for the President to take bold executive action to stop the senseless deportations and exert leadership on enacting just and humane immigration reform," said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition.

It will not happen without the tireless commitment of immigrants and progressive Americans.

NY Daily

Polish immigration to the UK: wild claims don't add up

UK counts workers who enter this country but not those who leave, so oft-quoted figures are far from accurate

Why are they here?
In the 1990s first John Major and then Robin Cook toured eastern Europe to persuade the new ex-communist states to join the EU as part of their "wider not deeper" European strategy to assuage the Eurosceptics. In 2004 eight eastern European countries, including Poland, joined the EU – the Accession 8 or A8. The worker registration scheme (WRS) was set up to regulate their access to the labour market and restrict access to benefits.

How many have come?
By the end of 2009 there was a cumulative total of 1,041,315 registrations under the scheme. This has been portrayed as the largest wave of migration to Britain in recent history. But these are gross cumulative figures and include many Poles who come each year on short-term contract work – for example, spending the summer months working in the agriculture processing industry – and then return home. Of those surveyed, 62% said they were in Britain for less than three months.

As the WRS does not count who goes home, it is impossible to say how many are still here. But recent studies argue that at least 50% have returned to Poland as the country's economy has expanded and the zloty strengthened.
Far from being a new wave of long-term immigration leading to settlement, the movement – according to migration experts – has primarily been of short-term circular migrants commuting on cheap air routes such as Ryanair. Also following a circular route are many of the 1 million Britons who live and work elsewhere in the EU. British companies say eastern Europeans work harder and are willing to do the jobs Britons won't, but trade unions argue they have been used to undercut wages.

But they said it would only be 13,000?
This estimate was made by Professor John Salt, University College London, who based it on what happened when Spain and Portugal joined the EU and assumed that all the other countries would open their doors to A8 nationals as well. It was decided after the estimate was published that only Britain, Ireland and Sweden would open their doors to A8 workers. Labour argued it was better they come legally than illegally.

So what happened to British jobs for British workers?
More than two million new jobs have been created since 1997. Employment of UK citizens has risen by 1.2 million to 26.6 million. Estimates from the Office of National Statistics which suggest that 97% of new jobs have gone to foreign-born workers are misleading as they include many British citizens who were born abroad but grew up here.

But haven't they put our welfare system under intolerable pressure?
Most who came were young – 78% aged between 18 and 34 – and only 5% brought school-age children with them. The Home Office says they have gone where the work is, filling gaps in the labour market in administration, agriculture, hospitality and catering, and food, fish and meat-processing. Whitehall says they have made few demands on the welfare system, with just 7,000 successfully claiming tax-funded income related benefits last year.

But the arrival of Polish workers did put some regions under severe strain – especially Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, which had little experience of rapid population change. Only belatedly did Labour recognise this by setting up a migration impact fund but the Treasury refused to fund it, leaving it to be paid for by an inadequate levy on new migrants.

Are they still coming now?
The numbers declined sharply in the recession. In the final quarter of 2009 there were 28,000 new registrations under the WRS compared with 52,000 in the same period of 2007.

With Germany and other countries opening their borders to Polish workers from 2011 the numbers are expected to fall further.
The Guardian

Tweets Stop EDL Twerp's (UK)

West Midlands Police hail Twitter after EDL rally

Police have praised the power of social networking site Twitter after it allowed them to quickly refute inflammatory rumours during the English Defence League’s Dudley demonstration.

Officers used the technology to rebut suggestions that a rival demonstrator from group Unite Against Fascism had stabbed an EDL steward.

They issued tweets – messages of no more than 140 letters – on the site to quell the ugly rumours. It was the third time the EDL had dropped in on West Midlands Police, but the first where the true power of Twitter on the frontline was unleashed.

The force’s ground-breaking handling of the far-right group’s protest against a proposed mosque on April 3, as Unite Against Fascism held a peaceful multi-cultural event nearby, won praise from the community.

Ch Insp Mark Payne, media liaison officer on the day, used Twitter service TweetDeck to monitor messages, and before the protest began he refuted a message posted on Facebook suggesting EDL members had smashed a mosque’s windows. Midway through the afternoon a tweet wrongly suggested that an EDL steward had been stabbed by UAF supporters. Within minutes of EDL protesters breaking through police lines, Ch Insp Payne told the public the incident was under control.

He said: “Tried and tested techniques of sharing information and new media complemented each other to ensure accurate coverage and make sure false rumour could not cause more problems.”

Of 12 men arrested, six remain on police bail, one received a fixed penalty notice, one was cautioned, two were charged and two were released without charge. Adnan Ajram, 18, appeared at Dudley Magistrates’ Court on April 14 charged with possession of an offensive weapon and of a Class B drug. Ian Rollinson, 17, was charged with having an offensive weapon in public and appeared before Dudley magistrates on April 5. Both were releassed on bail to a date to be set.

Birmingham Mail

Belgian lawmakers pass burka ban

Belgium's lower house of parliament has voted for a law that would ban women from wearing the full Islamic face veil in public.

The law would ban any clothing that obscures the identity of the wearer in places like parks and on the street. No-one voted against it.

The law now goes to the Senate, where it may face challenges over its wording, which may delay it.

If passed, the ban would be the first move of its kind in Europe.
Only around 30 women wear this kind of veil in Belgium, out of a Muslim population of around half a million.

The BBC's Dominic Hughes in Brussels says MPs backed the legislation on the grounds of security, to allow police to identify people.
Other MPs said that the full face veil was a symbol of the oppression of women, our correspondent says.

Senate approval
Thursday's vote was almost unanimous with 134 MPs in support of the law and two abstentions.
It is expected to pass through the Senate without being blocked, with initial reports saying it could come into law as early as June or July.
But the Liberals and Christian Democrats - both represented in the Senate - say they will question the phrasing of the law, which could cause delays.
It will also take longer to become law if elections are called, as parliament would have to be dissolved. The Belgium government collapsed last week.

The Muslim Executive of Belgium has criticised the move, saying it would lead to women who do wear the full veil to be trapped in their homes.

Amnesty International said a ban would set a "dangerous precedent".
In a statement, the human rights group said it would "violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or niqab as an expression of their identity and beliefs".

The ban would be imposed in all buildings or grounds that are "meant for public use or to provide services", including streets, parks and sports grounds.

Exceptions could be made for certain festivals.

Those who break the law could face a fine of 15-25 euros (£13-£27) or a seven-day jail sentence.
BBC News

SERB NEO-NAZI LEADER EXTRADITED FROM GERMANY

Germany has handed the Serbian leader of a neo-Nazi movement to Belgrade after he fled the country to avoid a prison sentence, justice officials said Thursday. Goran Davidovic, the leader of the Nacionalni Stroj (National Alignment) group, was handed to Serbian authorities at Belgrade airport, state secretary Slobodan Homen told local media. "As soon as the police procedure is finished, he would be transferred to a prison," Homen told Belgrade B92 television. Davidovic, 35, was arrested in February in the southeastern German town of Traunstein on an international arrest warrant issued by the Serbian Justice Ministry for failing to serve a one-year prison term. In 2006, Davidovic, nicknamed "The Fuhrer", was sentenced to jail for spreading religious, national and racial hatred. The verdict was confirmed by Serbia's top legal body, the Supreme Court in 2008. Immediately after the Supreme Court ruling, Davidovic fled Serbia and was living in Italy until he was arrested there last April. Italian authorities released him in June pending a decision on an extradition request from Belgrade and Davidovic fled again, this time to Germany. The Nacionalni stroj has its seat in Serbia's Vojvodina district, the most ethnically diverse region of the country. It rails against gypsies, Jews and anti-fascists. After a number of attention-grabbing initiatives in the early years of the decade their public profile waned following Davidovic's 2006 trial.


Expatica

How exciting! I've never met proper racists before

Reported by Deborah Ross in the Independant

He's got a nice complexion, but Nick Griffin could do with a history lesson. Deborah Ross gets under the BNP leader's skin on the campaign trail in Essex

So, I'm off to spend the day with the British National Party which appals almost everyone I know – "Poor you"; "Say you're busy"; "Can't you pull a sickie?" – but I find I'm peculiarly thrilled and excited.

Perhaps I've always lived in some kind of bubble, but I've never met proper racists before. Once, when I was a kid, a girl down the road called me a "dirty yid" but my mum punched her and that was that, pretty much, and I've never witnessed or been involved in any instances since. Might they wear uniforms? March? Say Auschwitz was all one big, fat, stonking lie? As days out go, it has to be better than a stately home. (Although Blenheim Palace is said to be good, with a more than decent café).
I find the BNP in Barking and Dagenham, which basically means going east on the District line until you fall off at the end. This is where they already have 12 councillors (they need 14 more to gain control of the council), and where Nick Griffin, the leader, is standing as an MP against Labour's Margaret Hodge (majority: 8,883). They are all out canvassing today, and have gathered on a street on the vast Becontree Estate, which is comprised of 27,000 council homes and, apparently, houses 167,000 people. As I tip up, an altercation is already taking place – oh, joy of joys – between a BNP man in a sandy-coloured suit and a fat, white tattooed fellow with a neck thicker than his head and a Staffordshire bull terrier snarling at his side. "You got a problem with my bird, looking over the fence," the tattooed man is shouting, while jabbing the sandy-suited man in the chest. "Next time you come over, I'll hit you with a shovel!"
My God, you don't get this at Blenheim! Hit him with the shovel! Quick, someone find him a shovel! But, disappointingly, the minders manage to talk the tattooed man down. What was that all about? I ask. "That," says one of the minders, "was because Richard Barnbrook [the sandy-suited man, a BNP councillor] looked over the other fellow's fence where his girlfriend was having a bonfire, and he got cross about it." The minder is friendly and later updates me on where dog-fighting is at these days. "They use them Japanese akita dogs now. They can pick up a Staffie and it's gone." He also says: "I can't give you my real name, love, for security reasons, but it's Terry."

Back to work, pounding the streets, along with Nick and some of the other candidates – "I have two mixed-race grandchildren," says one happily, "but that's all right, because we never talk politics at home" – and the minder who would be nameless, if only he weren't Terry. Nick is not wearing a uniform, alas, and does not march. He just sort of pootles along. But he does have a glass eye, which is something. The eye is blue and spookily opaque, giving him the look of a dead fish that's been rather too long on the slab. He lost it while doing up a derelict house in France. He'd been burning rubbish on the fire when a shotgun cartridge, concealed in the rubbish, exploded in his face. "Ouch!" I say. "Didn't hurt at all," he says. What? Your eye is blown out and there is no pain? Pull the other one, although, I should warn you, it is just as Jewish as the first. He says: "It's like when someone has been stabbed, and they don't feel it. I guess it's a natural reaction when you've been injured. You've got more chance of getting away and surviving if you don't initially feel pain or whatever." A car passes. A young black woman sticks her head out the window, shouts "racist bastard" and speeds off. Is that painful? I ask. "No," he says. "You have to have the skin of a rhinoceros, doing this job." Actually, Nick has rather nice skin; he's 52, but possibly looks younger. Your beauty regime, Nick? Clinique? Clarins? Eve Lom? "I've never smoked ... I don't know actually ... it's just the way things are." Clinique, I'm thinking.
The job, today, is to press the flesh and distribute flyers. The flyers come with the headline "New Labour Have Changed The Face of Barking & Dagenham" and juxtapose two photographs. One shows pretty, white young women in tea-dresses, lining a street on what appears to be VE Day, and has a "From this..." arrow on it. The other, meanwhile, has a "To this..." arrow on it, and shows three women in burkhas, one of whom is giving the finger. I confess I have never personally seen a woman in a burkha give the finger but, like I said, perhaps I've lived in some kind of bubble.
Anyway, Nick's shtick, if you'll excuse my Yiddish, which you better had, or my mum will punch you, is that Hodge has been moving Labour-voting immigrants into the borough "on a huge scale" to see off the BNP threat. Some residents certainly believe this. "See that turning? Hodge has filled it with Africans," says one. The BNP even have a leaflet, "Africans for Essex" , which claims that the Government has paid Africans up to £50,000 to move here and "ensure safe majority seats in the future". However, as it turns out, the incentive scheme was open to everyone, not just immigrants, and how many took advantage? Just 39, of which six were white, 15 Asian, 13 black and five not recorded. Just 39, then, in a population of 167,000 which, as far as I can work out, represents an uptake of 0.02 per cent. Come on, Nick, I say. You're a Cambridge graduate. Surely you can see an uptake of 0.02 per cent isn't exactly the worry of the century, or even the week. You couldn't even brush your teeth and make that worry last. It's not a leaflet-worthy worry, is it? "It's symptomatic," he says. Of what? "In the last few years 5,000 natives have moved out of Barking and Dagenham and they've been replaced by Africans. The Labour Party hasn't had a programme by that name, but there has been deliberate gerrymandering."
Richard Barnbrook interrupts. "Nick," he says, "there is a man round the corner who is very angry with the BNP. He says you're the cause of bringing in all the immigrants." We go to see this man, who lives in a house with rotting windows and, for some reason, two lampposts lying horizontally across the concrete out front. "Nick," says the man, "I'll be straight with ya. Because you've got in here, they've [Labour] given 'em [immigrants] incentives from Hackney and every other borough ... That's what's happened." And this is what happens, I suppose, when gerrymandering accusations come back to bite you on the bum. I ask the man: are you blaming Nick? "I am," says the man. Might you want to hit him with a shovel? I haven't seen anyone hit with a shovel all day. Nick says: "Labour are bringing them [immigrants] in to deal with BNP votes, but if you go back to Hackney and Tower Hamlets in the Seventies, when the BNP wasn't there, and the National Front weren't a threat, the Labour Party still swamped them with immigrants, and they'll do the same here in Barking, whether we are here or not. Immigrants are cheap labour, and that's what it's really about, isn't it...?" Whoa, Nick, I say. I'm only here for the crack. I'm only here because I thought it would be more fun than Blenheim. I don't want to get involved. But to say the population is being deliberately manipulated, and to then say, actually, it's all down to the free market... It's manifestly contradictory, Nick. "I'm not a racist," says Nick, by way of reply. And neither is the man on the doorstep. "In 1964," he says, "my best friend was a black man." I say: Nick, why do you always use the world "swamped"? Nobody likes it. "The people round here do," he replies.
What is a racist? If you are worried that this country is becoming over-crowded, is that racism? I don't know. I put it to Nick. Nick, what is a racist? "It's a phrase that was invented by Leon Trotsky, who was a mass murderer, to demonise his political opponents. That's the first thing," he says. "But I think the definition that the ethnic minorities use is prejudice plus power. If that definition is used then, self-evidently, the BNP cannot be racist because we do not have any power."

And if you did have power, what's the first thing you would do? "Get out of Europe." Has there ever been an ideal time to live in Britain? "I think being a member of a yeoman's family under Elizabeth I would have been pretty good, before the theft of Parliament. The people were free. There was Shakespeare," Do you like Shakespeare? "I do, yes." Do you read Shakespeare? "I don't get that much time."

Barking actually has a lower proportion of people from ethnic minorities than most other London boroughs, so perhaps what's happening here isn't about a rise in immigration, but a rise in the fear of immigration. A recent report from the Institute for Public Policy Research even revealed that support for the BNP is actually weaker in areas of high immigration rather than stronger. It seems the less you have to do with immigrants, the more you will take against them. Nick himself lives in mid-Wales, which isn't the most mixed of areas. In fact, my husband is from mid-Wales and I was the first Jew my mother-in-law had ever met. ("What is a Jew exactly?" she asked. "I suppose," I replied, "Jews don't believe Christ was the Messiah." "I see," she said, before going to lie down for the afternoon).
I ask Nick if immigration has had a direct impact on his life. "I'll give you an example," he says. "I was campaigning in Birmingham, three or four years ago, and I put a leaflet though a letterbox and a boxer dog stood the other side and ripped the top off my finger. I went off to get a tetanus jab and get it sorted out, and the doctor there was a south Indian, and everyone else in A&E thought it was hilarious, but I was grateful to him for the treatment." But Nick, you big silly, that's a positive anecdote! He looks crestfallen, then continues: "Britain steals health workers from countries that are far poorer than us and need those health workers far more. I've got nothing against someone working in our health service from abroad, the shame is they were trained somewhere else and we've pinched them." Anyone would think he was making it up as he goes along.

Terry, meanwhile, is wondering why all we journalists ever want to talk about is immigration. Terry, I say, have you seen your own flyers? Terry, I add, why do you go to dog-fights, anyhow? You should be ashamed of yourself. "You can't avoid them where I live, love." he says. I ask Nick about John Tyndall, the founder of the National Front. What are your memories of him? "He was ideologically a fascist," he says, "but a gentle person." He insists that the BNP is not just the National Front in new clothes. What's the main difference? "We're electable." And who is an "indigenous Brit?" "You can see it at a DNA level," he says. "The fact is, if your maternal grandmother was born in this country before 1948, you are about 80 per cent likely to be descended from people who came here when the last ice melted 18,000 years ago. Until very recently, the last wave of invasion we had was in 1066." So is someone descended from a Norman an indigenous Brit? "Yes, as a matter of fact, because one of the phrases is 'before legal memory', which is the time of Edward I."
Am I an indigenous Brit, Nick? "Yes, because Jews were here before legal memory. There will always be a blurring of populations around the edges but the idea we are a nation of mongrels is most bizarre. It's almost a form of inverse Nazi race science." Inverse Nazi race science? Can you study that anywhere? The LSE? "If you have a mongrel race you must be able to have a pure race. As a matter of fact, you can't really have either. You wouldn't dream of going up to a Maori, whose people have only been in New Zealand for a thousand years, and saying: 'You're not indigenous,' whereas we've been here for 18,000 years." Well, the fact is we "swamped" the Maoris, and the Aborigines and the Native Americans. We did more than "swamp". We stole their land. If countries belong to their indigenous populations, as you say, shouldn't we now give those lands back? "That colonisation of other countries was wrong, but I'm not going to let it happen to mine," he says.
We end up in a pub on the Goresbrook Road, where we drink beer outside in the sun. Have you seen Shane Meadows's film, This Is England, I ask Nick. "Yes," he says. And? "It wasn't particularly good. It was shallow propaganda." A black fella walks by with one of those old-fashioned, Victorian bulldogs. It's a lovely dog, if called Razor, so Terry and I get up to make a big fuss of it. "Great dog," says Terry, to the owner. "Cheers," says the owner. Terry, who would still be nameless if only he were, then says: "See? We're not so bad. We talk to darkies." I think it's probably Blenheim next weekend. Leeds Castle is also said to be good.

The Independant

Thursday 29 April 2010

BNP candidate sends hate mail to rival

In an abusive letter, the BNP candidate for Croydon Central has called Conservative Gavin Barwell a “traitor” to his race and said he would like to see him “hung for treason”.

Cliff Le May, wrote to Mr Barwell at his campaign office after he received David Cameron’s letter urging residents not to vote for Andrew Pelling.

The letter, which was seen by Mr Barwell’s wife and his seven-year-old son reads: “You dirty, sleazy scumbags. If I have my way I will see you all hung for treason.”
Mr Barwell said he received the letter after a long day on the campaign trail and because he was tired, left it out when he went to bed, where it was seen by his family.

He said: “I just think it shows what kind of people these are. I don’t understand why people, when they have different views, can’t just be polite about it.
“If he wants to write to me about being in the EU or immigration that’s fine, but there is no need for personal abuse.”
Mr Le May was unrepentant when asked why he wrote the letter.

He said: “I am referring to the entire Conservative Party – they are dirty, sleazy scumbags. This is a personal view, not a party view.”

Mr Le May did not think his letter was “harsh” and did not care his words had been seen by a child.

Your local Guardian

Elections 2010: Racist comment overshadows debate on schools

BNP deputy leader Simon Darby made a racist jibe at an Asian opponent during a public hustings event.

Mr Darby made the remark about Conservative Parliamentary candidate Norsheen Bhatti during a debate last night in Bentilee.
Responding to a resident's question, Miss Bhatti commented "there is nothing British about the BNP".
But Mr Darby cut in, saying: "I'm more British than you are."
After she demanded an explanation, Mr Darby told the Birmingham-born candidate: "You made a personal attack on me and you got one back."

At the beginning of the debate, Miss Bhatti had complained to organisers after discovering that she had been sat next to Mr Darby.
Miss Bhatti eventually moved away from the far-right politician, leaving a conspicuously empty seat between them.
Another candidate, Liberal Democrat John Redfern, refused to attend because he did not wish to share a platform with Mr Darby.
Audience member Dawn Kelly, aged 40, who lives in Bentilee, said afterwards: "What Mr Darby said sounded racist and there was no need for it."

Mr Darby and Miss Bhatti are among 10 candidates contesting the Stoke-on-Trent Central Parliamentary seat but only half attended the event.
They all pledged to fight to keep a high school in the Bucknall area under reorganisation plans.

The debate was organised by the Community School Action Group, which is battling to keep a school on the site of the Mitchell Business and Enterprise College, in Bucknall.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council plans to merge the school with Edensor Technology College, in Longton, to create a new academy outside Bucknall.
BNP Mr Darby said he was opposed to forcing white and Muslim pupils to mix at an academy he called "a huge social engineering factory".

Independent Gary Elsby said: "The new school should be built on the Mitchell site."

Miss Bhatti blamed Labour leaders for not listening to residents' wishes, and said: "Rather than telling you what the solution should be, we want you to tell us."
Matt Wright, of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, said: "Our solution is to refurbish the existing community schools and use the money we save to recruit more teachers to reduce class sizes."

Independent Brian Ward told campaigners: "I wouldn't come here and ask for your vote if I wasn't prepared to back you."

This is Staffordshire

The roots of racism are in our brains, based on empathy

The roots of racial prejudice lie deep within the brain, research has suggested.

A study found that when we watch someone from our own race do something our brain simulates the action mentally as a form of empathy, known as 'mirroring'.
But when we see someone of a different race do the same thing we make much less effort to empathise.

Researchers asked a group of white men to watch film clips of white, black and Asian men picking up a glass of water and drinking.

While the men watched the videos the scientists hooked them up to machines that monitored whether their brains mimicked the action.

The men's brains lit up most when watching someone of their own race.

All the viewers were white but the researchers believe the results would still have been similar with any other group.

Writing in the Journal Experimental Social Psychology, Dr Michael Inzlicht said he believed people are born with a tendency to group others on how like themselves they are.

Dr Inzlicht said the research did not necessarily mean prejudice was innate, adding that discrimination about race, religion or hair colour was 'probably learnt'.

Daily Mail

Black neighbor suspected of killing white supremacist Richard Barrett breaks silence (USA)

A black man accused of stabbing an outspoken white supremacist to death in Mississippi said Monday he didn't know about the man's racist views before the killing.

Vincent McGee, 22, told an Associated Press reporter that he didn't learn until after Richard Barrett had been killed that he was a racist leader. McGee, who is charged with murder, spoke to AP outside the home where Barrett's body was found stabbed, beaten and burned last week.

"I know — now I do — I didn't know at first," McGee said of Barrett's views.

McGee blurted out comments even though deputies told him he was not allowed to do interviews. McGee wouldn't comment on whether he killed Barrett, and was cheerful and joked with deputies.

He also claimed to have killed 25 people, then smiled and stuck out his tongue. Deputies escorting him didn't appear to take his claim seriously and the sheriff didn't immediately return a telephone message.

Police have not said why they think Barrett was killed.

Deputies at the scene would not say what they were looking for during the search or whether they found it.

Barrett, 67, was known for traveling the country promoting segregationist views. He founded a group called the Nationalist Movement and ran a school for skinheads in Mississippi.
McGee was arrested and charged with murder just hours after Barrett's body was found Thursday in the rural Monterey community near the Jackson suburb of Pearl.

McGee, a convicted felon, wore a yellow prison uniform Monday as seven deputies took him from Barrett's house to a wooded area nearby. They searched tall grass near a dilapidated barn and then walked McGee down the street to his mother's house, just two doors down from Barrett's.

Barrett was stabbed several times in the neck and bashed in the head, police said. He had burns over 35 percent of his body, though investigators believe he was killed Wednesday, and his house set on fire the following day to cover up his death.
Three others have been charged in the case. Albert Lewis, McGee's stepfather, was charged with being an accessory after the fact, while Vicky and Michael Dent, a mother and son who live nearby, are charged with being accessories after the fact and arson.

Mike Scott, a public defender representing McGee, didn't want to comment on specifics of the case or his client's remarks, saying he is looking forward to presenting his side at the trial.
NY Daily

FAR-RIGHT PARTY CALLS FOR 'DISSOLUTION' OF BELGIUM

Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang on Tuesday called for the "dissolution" of Belgium, as King Albert II sought to patch up a breakdown between Flemish and French-speaking coalition partners. "The profound political crisis Belgium has run into clearly proves the Belgian model is a complete failure," said a statement from Filip Dewinter, chairman of the far-right Vlaams Belang in the Flemish parliament. "The disease is Belgium and the only remedy is Flemish independence," he added, saying his party had introduced a bill in the Flemish legislature -- one of three in the federal kingdom of Belgium -- to prepare negotiations for Flanders to become "the successor state" to Belgium. He said Flanders, the larger and more prosperous Dutch-speaking partner in a country constructed by European superpowers in 1830, would "remain a partner" in the European Union and the NATO military alliance. Militants from the party created a stir in the Belgian federal parliament on Thursday when the long-running political crisis first hit a new peak after King Albert accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Yves Leterme. They sang the Flemish regional anthem in the assembly, wearing badges with "Split Belgium" written on them. Belgium's government collapsed last week when a coalition party pulled out in protest at the slow pace of negotiations on devolving more federal powers to the Dutch- and French-speaking regions, which have long been at odds. Opinion polls show that most people from the relatively prosperous Flanders region do not want to break away from poorer Wallonia. Belgium's third region is the officially bilingual Brussels capital area.


AFP

RUSSIAN COURT BANS NEO-NAZI ORGANIZATION

A Moscow court on Tuesday outlawed one of Russia's largest neo-Nazi organizations as extremist, ruling that the philosophies of the Slavic Union resemble the ideology of Adolf Hitler's Germany, the Interfax news agency reported. The ultra-nationalist group said it will fight the ruling. "We will definitely appeal to the Supreme Court," Slavic Union leader Dmitry Demushkin was quoted as saying. Two weeks ago, a municipal court judge known for his work against neo-Nazis was shot dead outside his apartment by a contract killer. Human rights activists have long criticized the brutality of right-wing extremists in Russia. Racial hatred has been blamed for dozens of deaths in the country since the beginning of the year. The victims of the deadly attacks often are immigrants from Central Asian countries such as Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The murderers often brag about their brutal acts in the internet.


DPA

BNP "too racist" for black vicar

A black reverend who defected from the BNP because it was “too racist” is standing in the general election as a Christian Party candidate for the Croydon Central seat.
Reverend James Gitau, 63 from West Croydon, joined the BNP and went on the campaign trail on April 10 with Nick Griffin in Barking and Dagenham, the constituency where he is standing.

The Kenyan, who moved to Britain in 1997, said: “I actually decided to join them when they opened up for all races. I campaigned for them to open up to other races.

“I asked them to give me one of the constituency seats in Croydon and they refused so I decided to leave. I also realised then that they were too racist.”
Rev Gitau will be standing against BNP candidate Cliff Le May in Croydon Central who has come under fire for his racist views.
He wrote to London Mayor Boris Johnson asking him to “stop ruining our community by stuffing New Addington with violent immigrants who have no right to live among decent civilised white people” and called Gavin Barwell a traitor to his “race and nation” for the Conservative’s immigration policy.

Rev Gitau, who is affiliated to the United Holy Church of America, said he was approached by the Christian Party on April 17 who encouraged him to leave the BNP and join their party.

However, he said he still gave advice to BNP leader Nick Griffin.

He said: “I am giving him advice and telling him that racism is not the way forward.”

Mr Gitau said he told Nick Griffin there should be immigration controls but “genuine immigrants” should be allowed into the country.
Rev Gitau said one of the reasons he campaigned to join the BNP was because it was “the only party that boldly speaks against sodomy in public”.

However, he hastened to add, he was not homophobic.

He said: “I preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and he preaches against homosexuality. I don’t hate homosexuals, I love them. They are my friends, they are human beings. We should love them but teach them to be better people.”

Rev Gitau said he wanted homosexuals in Croydon to vote for him “because we are all sinners”.

Croydon Guardian

Wednesday 28 April 2010

Breaking News: Croydon BNP election candidate guilty of attacking four anti-fascist protesters

A British National Party election candidate for Croydon Council has been found guilty of attacking four anti-fascist protesters.

David Clarke, of Dunley Drive, New Addington, was found guilty of four counts of assaulting protesters outside of East Croydon station on May 27 and May 29 last year.

Mr Clarke is currently running for election as a councillor for Heathfield Ward.

Croydon Magistrates Court heard the first incident occurred at 6.50pm on May 27 as anti-fascist protesters were handing out leaflets in an attempt to try and dissuade people from supporting the BNP at the station.

Two days later on May 29 he is accused of assaulting another two protesters, James Cox and his partner, Lorna Nelson-Homian.

Clarke will be sentenced on May 18.
Lorna Nelson-Homian, one of Clarke's four victims, said: "I think the verdict today shows that the BNP's veil of credibility has once again fallen down.

"BNP policies are racist, and this case shows they always resort back to their violent roots."

Croydon Guardian

‘Neo-Nazi father asked me to research bomb’

A TEENAGER facing terror charges has admitted researching how to make an electromagnetic pulse bomb capable of knocking out vital computer systems if successfully detonated.

Former milkman’s assistant Nicky Davison told a jury at Newcastle Crown Court yesterday that he had been finding out more about the device for his father, Ian, who he later discovered was found in possession of the poison ricin – one of the world’s most deadly substances.

But Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, said the 19-year-old could not blame everything on his father.

The exchange came on the tenth day of the trial of Mr Davison Jr, who is accused of being one of the founders of the Aryan Strike Force – a neo-Nazi group set up by his father in 2008.

The aim of the group was to carry out “ops” and to resist what its members called Zog – the Zionist Occupational Government.
Mr Davison Jr has pleaded not guilty to three charges of possessing a record containing information which could be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.

The charges relate to electronic copies of The Poor Man’s James Bond and Anarchist’s Cookbook found on computers at his home in Grampian Way, Annfield Plain, near Stanley, County Durham.

Mr Davison Jr, who denies knowledge of the documents or downloading them, said earlier in his trial he had joined the extremist group to please his father.
He said his father had always been interested in bombs and had asked him to research how to make an electromagnetic pulse bomb, using plastic explosive, which could be built for about £260.

When detonated, the device creates a field of magnetic energy which can disable electronic systems, including bank, government and hospital computers, the court was told.

The jury was shown a red GCSE art book in which Mr Davison Jr had written notes about the device.

Mr Edis said: “Not everything you have done is your father’s fault. You were able to make decisions yourself. You cannot just say it was your dad.

“Your dad wanted to make a bomb and you were helping him.”

Last month, Davison Sr, a former pub DJ, of Myrtle Grove, Burnopfield, County Durham, admitted preparing for an act of terrorism and producing a chemical weapon between June 1 and 3 last year.

He also admitted three charges of possessing a record containing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing acts of terrorism relating to copies of The Anarchist’s Cookbook, the Mujahideen Explosives Handbook and Kitchen Complete on June 2.

He will be sentenced at the conclusion of his son’s trial.
The Northern Echo

Husband of BNP parliamentary candidate quits 'to protect party'

THE husband of a BNP Parliamentary candidate has quit the party following his recent arrest over an alleged drugs offence.

Clifford Baddeley was arrested last month on suspicion of possessing cannabis.
The arrest led to police searching the house he shares with his wife Melanie, who is the far-right party's Parliamentary candidate in the Stoke-on-Trent North constituency.

Mr Baddeley, who has not been charged with any offences, remains on police bail while officers complete their investigation.

The unemployed 49-year-old, of Holehouse Road, Abbey Hulton, has admitted to using cannabis in the past to relieve the pain of arthritis.

However, he says he has since stopped using the drug.
BNP figures say Mr Baddeley left the party to avoid causing further embarrassment in the run-up to the May 6 polls.
His departure comes after BNP chairman Nick Griffin was forced to defend Mr Baddeley's conduct at the party's election manifesto launch in Stoke on Friday.
Mr Griffin had unveiled a range of tough new crime policies, including the death penalty for drug dealers, in front of the media.
But he was later forced to admit he would not be taking any disciplinary action against Mr Baddeley on the grounds that he had been using cannabis medicinally.
Mr Baddeley told The Sentinel last week that he was ashamed of the embarrassment his arrest had caused for his wife and the party.
He was unavailable for comment last night on his decision to step down.

Mrs Baddeley said she accepted her husband's resignation from the party and wanted to focus on her campaign.
She said: "Following the manifesto launch on Friday, when questions were raised about Clifford, he has decided to resign from the party.

"He stepped down, because he was aware of the embarrassment his situation was causing for the party."

Stoke-on-Trent City Council BNP group leader Councillor Michael Coleman, who is standing for election in the Stoke-on-Trent South constituency, said he felt Mr Baddeley had made the right decision.

And he hinted that his departure may be temporary if the ongoing police inquiry finds no evidence of any wrongdoing.
He said: "It is true that Mr Baddeley has resigned in light of everything that has happened.

"He is doing this to protect the party and our reputation, but he wasn't pushed; it was his choice to leave.

"I'm sure that when this has all blown over, he will come back to us."

He added: "His medical condition is absolutely awful and we are taking a lenient approach because of that."

This is Staffordshire

Jobbik unveils new name for organization soon to be again banned by the courts

After winning 47 seats in the new parliament, Jobbik party chairman Gábor Vona has announced that he will  form a new Hungarian National Guard, which is slightly different from the Hungarian Guard that was banned, and the New Hungarian Guard which was also not smiled upon, an MTI report revealed. The Hungarian Guard has claimed that it functions as a movement and not an organization, and that therefore the judgment by the court does not apply to it. The article did not address what new names Jobbik would give to the Hungarian Guard when it is banned again.

Politics.Hu

PP IN BADALONA, DEFENDS ITS FLYERS STATING ROMANIAN GYPSIES “ARE HERE TO COMMIT CRIME” (Spain)

The president of the PP in Badalona, defends its flyers stating that Romanian gypsies "are here to commit crime". The president of the PP in Badalona, Xavi GarcĂ­a Albiol, defended the distribution of leaflets in the town made by his party in which a photograph taken from the street with a slogan that says 'we do not want Romanians', and that part of the collective Romanian-Gypsy community has "been installed to commit crimes and steal". GarcĂ­a Albiol explained that the purpose of these forms is to transmit a major issue "being experienced by the municipality". The booklet is a real picture of a banner that hangs in several buildings in the neighbourhood of San Roque where 75% of the population are gypsy," argued the popular leader, in an interview with Cadena Ser gathered by Europa Press. In this sense, Albiol criticized the mayor of Badalona, the socialist Jordi Sierra, he "hides his head in the sand" and think that "failure to discuss the problem will solve it" rather than confront it "with courage". "The Romanian-gypsy group has been installed in this city to commit crimes and steal and that is creating many problems in the densest part of the city," said Albiol, who qualified that this accusation does not extend to all Romanian immigrants since he recognized that "the vast majority of them have come to the city of Badalona to work and are honest people."


Barcelona Reporter

War heroes anger as BNP use 'D-Day veteran'

A SHEFFIELD D-Day hero has lashed out at the BNP for using a Normandy veteran in an election publicity drive.

Ken Riley, aged 86, of Grimesthorpe, chairman of the Normandy Veterans' Association Sheffield branch, said there were inconsistencies in the account of service given by the man - Bob Head - in the BNP's release.
And he said the man's medals - displayed in two rows, one at an angle - were not being worn correctly.

Mr Riley said: "There is no way a Normandy veteran would be voting for the BNP or endorsing them when they fought against fascism. I have suspicions about this person, particularly with the medals not being worn properly."

Mr Riley is currently the face of a campaign being run by Hope Not Hate against the far-right BNP - and said a lot of the quotes in the BNP's publicity drive seem uncannily similar to some of his own.

Paul Meszaros, regional spokesman for Hope Not Hate, said: "It's disgraceful. We know Ken is a real war hero. It would be despicable if they have used our press release as the basis for theirs."

In Hope Not Hate's press release, Mr Riley says: "When I enlisted in the Army 66 years ago, I did it for Britain. Now I need you to do something for me. The BNP is trying to strangle our great nation with the same extremist and fascist agenda that Hitler's Nazis threatened us with decades ago. Hope Not Hate is on the front lines of our fight."
Mr Head begins: "When I enlisted in the Army in 1942, aged 18, I did it for Britain. Now I need you to do something for me. The British National Party is on the front lines of our fight."

Other lines appear in both men's statements, such as "Today, the war isn't being fought on the battlefield but in the ballot box" and "If I had my health I would be out there with them. But I can't - so I'm asking you to volunteer for me".
In the BNP's press release, Mr Head claims to have been part of the 51st Highland Division and says he was involved in the Normandy invasion, the Battle of the Bulge and Operation Market Garden.

But historical records show the 51st Highland Division was not involved in Market Garden - the attempt to take the Rhine bridges at Arnhem.

In a photograph released by the BNP Mr Head is wearing two rows of medals but the top row is at an angle.

Mr Riley said that although the medals on the top row are genuine, they would be worn by any proud veteran in a straight line. And doubts have been expressed about the authenticity of the lower medals, which Mr Riley did not recognise.

The BNP did not respond to requests to The Star's request for comment
The Star

Mexico migrants face human rights crisis, says Amnesty

Migrants in Mexico are facing a "major human rights crisis" as the authorities fail to tackle widespread abuses, Amnesty International has warned.

The human rights group said officials ignored or even played a part in the rape, kidnap, and murder of migrants, often carried out by criminal gangs.
Tens of thousands of Central American migrants pass through Mexico every year to try to reach the US and find work.

Amnesty called on Mexico's government to "prevent, punish and remedy abuses".

"Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses," said Rupert Knox, who contributed to the report, Invisible Victims: Migrants on the Move.

"Persistent failure by the authorities to tackle abuses carried out against irregular migrants has made their journey through Mexico one of the most dangerous in the world," he added.

Sexual violence
Amnesty cited statistics from the Mexican National Human Rights Commission, which showed that nearly 10,000 migrants had been abducted, mainly for ransom, over a period of six months in 2009.
It said that almost half of those interviewed said public officials had played a direct role in their kidnap.


The report also said that an estimated six out of 10 migrant women and girls have experienced sexual violence at the hands of criminals, other migrants or corrupt public officials.

Amnesty has called on the Mexican authorities to set up a federal task force to protect migrants' rights, and to bring those responsible for abuses to justice.

The Mexican government has often stated its commitment to the protection of migrants.

Grupo Beta, a government initiative started in 1991, operates in northern and southern border states, offering advice and humanitarian aid to migrants.

However, it lacks the necessary funding and authority to adequately support the constant stream of migrants heading north, according to Amnesty.

The majority of migrants are from the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

BBC News

UK agrees to compensate man wrongly accused of terrorism

Lotfi Raissi was released in 2002 after 'no evidence at all' was found to support allegations that he trained the hijackers of airplanes used in the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001.
Amnesty International has welcomed a move by the UK authorities to compensate Lotfi Raissi, a flight instructor who was wrongly accused of training the hijackers of airplanes used to carry out the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001.

Following his arrest in September 2001, Raissi spent five months in prison in Belmarsh high security prison while the USA attempted to have him extradited on minor charges unconnected with terrorism.

In April 2002, a judge ordered his release, stating that the court had received "no evidence at all" to support the allegation that he was involved in "terrorism".

The UK Ministry of Justice told Lotfi Raissi via his lawyer on Friday 23 April 2010 that it considered him "completely exonerated", more than eight years after he was first arrested.
The agreement, which came on the last possible day permitted by a 26 March 2010 judgment by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, allows Raissi to apply for compensation. The final amount will be determined by an independent assessor.

Lotfi Raissi told Amnesty International via his lawyer on Friday 23 April, "I am delighted. I have waited for this for nine years. I hope that this government statement will help get rid of the cloud of suspicion that has hung over my life for so long."
In March, the Court of Appeal found the UK authorities' "inordinate delay" to reconsider Raissi's compensation claim to be characterized by a "high degree of unreasonableness".

Lotfi Raissi's lawyer, Jules Carey, said to Amnesty International on Friday that "the allegations of terrorism were utterly ruinous to Mr Raissi both personally and professionally" and that he hoped that the decision to compensate Lotfi Raissi "marks a new chapter in his life and that his rehabilitation will begin."
The Court of Appeal had earlier ruled on 14 February 2008 that the authorities must reconsider Lotfi Raissi's claim for compensation. The Court said the extradition proceedings "amounted to an abuse of process" and had been "used as a device to circumvent the rule of English law".

Lofti Raissi was arrested on 21 September 2001 on the basis of information supplied to the UK authorities by the US administration of former President George W Bush.

He was released after seven days' questioning and immediately re-arrested on the basis of a warrant requesting his extradition to the US.

He was never charged with any offence related to terrorism and extradition procedures appeared to have been launch to secure his presence in the USA so that the 11 September attacks could be investigated.
amnesty.org

'Anarchist's Cookbook' writer admits terror offences

A man who wrote a terrorists' handbook using information from an al-Qaeda training manual has pleaded guilty to offences under the Terrorism Act.

Terrance Brown, 46, from Portsmouth, compiled CDs which included instructions about how to build bombs.
The discs, called the Anarchist's Cookbook, were sold for $35 (£23).

Brown pleaded guilty to seven counts of collecting information that could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism at Winchester Crown Court.

The maximum sentence is 10 years. He will be sentenced on 2 June.

'Largest haul'
Two additional counts of recklessly disseminating the information and one count of transferring criminal property will lie on file.
The discs were sold worldwide on a website, which is now closed, between 2003 and 2008 from his home in Whitworth Road.
They included, among other things, extracts from the Mujahideen Poisons Book and instructions on how to build improvised explosive devices.
The court was told that Brown made tens of thousands of pounds from the business but had no terrorist sympathies.
He is now penniless and has county court judgements against him, the court heard.

Parmjit Cheema, prosecuting, told the court that the haul of terrorist information was the largest ever found in the UK.
The judge, Sir Geoffrey Grigson, granted Brown bail and adjourned the case for reports.

BBC News

Blair Peach: After 31 years Met police say 'sorry' for their role in his killing

A former police inspector tonight denied involvement in the notorious killing of the anti-racist protester Blair Peach, after a report released earlier in the day suggested he may have been the officer who struck the "fatal blow".

Alan Murray, who is now a university lecturer but was a 29-year-old Metropolitan police inspector in 1979, said he was the victim of a bungled investigation into Peach's death. "I did not kill Blair Peach. Of that I am certain," he said.
Murray was speaking after the release of more than 3,000 previously secret documents that shed new light on the death of Peach, a 33-year-old teacher from New Zealand whose skull was crushed by a single blow to the head during a protest against the National Front in Southall, west London, on the evening of 23 April 1979.
The documents appeared to confirm the long-held suspicion that Peach was likely to have been killed by an officer from the Met's riot squad, the special patrol group (SPG).

The key document was produced by Commander John Cass, who ran the Met's internal complaints bureau and led the inquiry into Peach's death. He concluded that Peach was "almost certainly" killed by one of six SPG officers, some of whom then lied to cover up the actions of their colleague.

No officers were ever charged over Peach's death, although the event marked one of the darkest moments in Scotland Yard's history. Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan police commissioner, recognised as much when he said the report made "uncomfortable reading". He unequivocally accepted the finding that a Met officer was likely to have been responsible for the death and, in an unusual move, expressed his regret.

"I have to say, really, that I am sorry that in over 31 years since Blair Peach's death we have been unable to provide his family and friends with the definitive answer regarding the terrible circumstances in which he met his death," he said.

Asked if he was apologising for the death of Peach, he replied: "I am sorry that officers behaved that way, according to Mr Cass."
Murray, who retired from the Met soon after the death and now lectures in corporate social responsibility at Sheffield University, was not named in the documents that were made public. But he accepted that from evidence given at Peach's inquest and other material, he was easily identifiable. The former inspector is among dozens of police officers questioned over the death more than 30 years ago who can now be identified.

They include Tony Lake, who attended the Southall demonstration as an SPG sergeant, and later rose through the highest ranks of the constabulary, becoming the chief constable of Lincolnshire police.

Lake, who once chaired the national DNA database and was awarded an OBE when he retired two years ago, declined to comment last night on Peach's death but said that a 1981 newspaper report linking him to the officers identified in the Cass report was "fundamentally wrong".

The Met agreed to release the documents last year in the aftermath of the death of Ian Tomlinson, a 47-year-old newspaper seller who died after being attacked by police at the G20 protests in London. The officer filmed striking Tomlinson was a member of the territorial support group, which replaced the disbanded SPG in 1987. The Crown Prosecution Service is still considering whether to charge the officer with manslaughter.

Yesterday's publication marked the culmination of a 31-year campaign by friends and family of Peach for full disclosure of the Met's inquiry into the death. The Cass report was suppressed in 1980 by the late Dr John Burton, the coroner who oversaw the inquest into Peach's death.

The inquest controversially returned a verdict of "death by misadventure", but recently disclosed documents suggest Burton was biased in favour of the police. He wrote to ministers before the end of the inquest, dismissing the belief that Peach was killed by an officer as political "fabrication".

After the inquest, Burton penned an "unpublished story" about the Peach death which railed against what the coroner saw as a leftwing campaign to destabilise the legal establishment. Senior civil servants managed to persuade him not to publish his account. One official wrote: "An article like this would be a heaven-sent opportunity to those who wish to get maximum publicity out of this incident to argue that the coroner was biased and for this reason the inquest was unsound."

Peach's long-term partner, Celia Stubbs, said yesterday she felt totally vindicated by the Cass report. She described its released as "the beginning of the end" of her campaign for answers.

She repeated her long-held belief that Peach would not have wanted to be known as a political martyr, but accepted that the search for answers over his death had for many become a political cause in itself, galvanising concern over what were considered the brutal actions of corrupt and unaccountable police.

When Peach's body was finally buried – 51 days after his death – thousands of activists marched across London. Around 8,000 mainly Sikhs from Southall had already paid their respects at his open coffin, which lay in a nearby theatre the previous night.
The suspicions of most of those mourners – that a police officer killed Peach – were all but confirmed in yesterday's report.

Stubbs said: "It is fantastic after 31 years. I have only read 200 pages of the report but I feel that we have really been vindicated because we have always said that Blair had been killed by a policeman. It says in the report that it was an officer that struck Blair.

"I never really expected a prosecution. I don't regret that, I am just pleased that we have the report so we can see what happened on the day."

The Cass report was written at the end of the summer of 1979, following months of inquiries.

In laying out his terms of reference he said: "My brief is to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death, so I do not propose to enlarge much further on the events of that day except to emphasise that it was an extremely violent volatile and ugly situation where there was serious disturbance by what can be classed as a 'rebellious crowd'.

"The legal definition 'unlawful assembly' is justified and the event should be viewed with that kind of atmosphere prevailing. Without condoning the death I refer to Archbold [Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice] 38th edition para 2528: "In case of riot or rebellious assembly the officers endeavouring to disperse the riot are justified in killing them at common law if the riot cannot otherwise be suppressed."

If Cass was seeking to exonerate his men, it was an endeavour he found difficult in the face of more than 3,000 pages of witness testimony, forensic evidence and tense interviews with officers. After reviewing hundreds of pages of evidence, he reached his conclusion: that it could "reasonably be concluded that a police officer struck the fatal blow". Despite this, he said there was insufficient evidence to bring charges of unlawful killing.

Cass had narrowed his investigation down to six SPG officers in carrier U11, the first vehicle to arrive in Beachcroft Avenue, the suburban street where Peach was found stumbling around, barely able to talk. Moments earlier, 14 witnesses had seen "a police officer hit the deceased on the head" but, according to Cass, there were discrepancies in their evidence and most could not identify an officer from repeated identity parades.
Although he did not recommend charges over the death, Cass did name three officers he proposed should be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice, believing they had lied to his investigators to cover up the actions of their colleague.
Analysing their statements, he found some had been engaged in a "deliberate attempt to conceal the presence of the carrier at the scene at that time".

In a key passage, he wrote: "It is now clear that [carrier] U11 was at the scene and almost certainly the officer who struck the blow had come from that carrier. It will be appreciated that the explanation given by the crew of the carrier would be of paramount importance to the investigation." He went on to express concern over the "attitude and untruthfulness" of some of the officers in the van, and found their responses "seriously lacking".
His recommendation that three officers be prosecuted for lying to their seniors was apparently overruled by the then director of public prosecutions, Sir Thomas Hetherington, who within weeks of receiving the Cass report announced there was insufficient evidence to bring any charge against any officer. After the Met reviewed the conduct of the officers, it was felt that none should be disciplined.

Of the six SPG officers, Cass said there was an "indication" that one officer in particular – the first to emerge from the carrier – struck the "fatal blow", but emphasised that there was "no evidence of a conclusive nature". The name of that officer was redacted from today's published version of the report, but last night Murray acknowledged that it was a reference to him. He accepted he was the first out of the van and said he was aware at the time that Cass had made him a "prime suspect" in the inquiry. But he criticised the investigation, and accused Cass of turning to him in the absence of more concrete evidence.

"In a report like that, that man [Cass] can write anything he likes," he said. "So he is pursuing me and trying to fit me up for a murder that I didn't commit, and then he tells people that I am stressed."

Claiming he had been a "hostage to fortune", Murray accused Cass of bungling the investigation.

Cass, 85, who retired 20 years ago, said last night he was unwilling to comment on the allegations being made by Murray. But the Met stood by Cass, saying his findings were the result of an extensive and robust inquiry. Commander Mark Simmons, the officer who now runs the Met's complaints department and oversaw the release of his predecessor's report, said "a significant amount of resources" had been put into the investigation. "I've got no reason to disagree with Commander Cass's conclusions," he added.

Cass's findings were also welcomed yesterday by Deborah Coles, a co-director of Inquest, an organisation that was set up in 1981 partly in response to Peach's death and provides advice on contentious deaths. However, she raised questions about the institutions that hold police to account. "The whole police investigation into what happened on 23 April 1979 was clearly designed as an exercise in managing the fallout from the events of that iconic day in Southall, to exonerate police violence in the face of legitimate public protest," she said. "The echoes of that exercise sound across the decades to the events of the G20 protest and the death of Ian Tomlinson in 2009."

The history
April 23 1979 Blair Peach dies at a protest against the National Front in London. Scotland Yard announces an investigation and interrogates police officers. It finds 14 witnesses who say they saw Peach attacked by a police officer. In July, tens of thousands attend Peach's funeral.

October 1979 After reviewing the Metropolitan police's internal investigation, the director of public prosecutions, Sir Thomas Hetherington, says there is insufficient evidence to charge any officer. We now know that the Met inquiry, by Commander John Cass, said three officers should be charged with perverting the course of justice.

May 1980 An inquest into Peach's death returns a verdict of death by misadventure. Campaigners accuse the coroner, Dr John Burton, of being biased in favour of police and leaning on the jury. Burton refused lawyers acting on behalf of Peach's friends and family access to the Cass report.

July 1988 In an out of court settlement, the Met agrees to pay Peach's relatives in New Zealand £75,000 in compensation. His partner Celia Stubbs was not entitled to a payout.

April 2009 Newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson dies during G20 protests in London after being struck by police. Parallels are drawn with Peach's death. A motion is put to Scotland Yard's watchdog for release of the Cass report, which is published almost a year later.

The Guardian

Tuesday 27 April 2010

The BNP Want To Censor Eastenders And OK Magazine


The 2010 BNP Manifesto released this week contains the following statement:

Alien Cultural Influences
The BNP disapproves of the malign influences of the international media and their promulgation, for example, of ‘celebrity culture’ which is often of a nature that is both pernicious and subversive.

Television should strive to depict improved standards of conduct rather than reducing much within its remit to the lowest common denominator.

Often, the media portrays the white working class in the most negative, unattractive and unacceptable light. This practice must stop.


What does that mean in real terms for their potential voters? Well, they disapprove of ‘Celebrity Culture’, for example OK and Hello Magazines. So we can’t read about who has lost or gained weight, who is dating who, who has been snapped out and about with a ‘mystery companion’. They certainly won’t like Celebrity Big Brother, I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, What Katie Did Next or even Celebrity ‘The Apprentice’.

So all celebrity magazines and celebrity ‘reality’ TV shows are out under the BNP.

But that isn’t going far enough for the country’s self-appointed moral guardians.

‘White working class’ people must not be portrayed in a ‘negative and unacceptable light’. Note there is no mention of how non-white Brits are portrayed on popular TV. They can be portrayed as negatively and unattractively as possible, and the BNP are fine with that.

So no more Eastenders, Emmerdale or Coronation Street, or at least no more of the villains we love! No Dirty Den under the BNP, no Les Battersby, no Richard Hillman. No Cindy Beale, no Phil Mitchell battling with alcoholism. And the Dingle family in Emerdale?? No chance! Imagine popular TV soaps with no affairs, murders, double-crossing, lies, secrets, vices… in other words all the things that make them interesting to the British people. If anything bad happened - you'd know the black family did it!

And all because the BNP want to portray white people as ‘good’ and non-white people as ‘bad’.

No matter how you feel about trashy TV and magazines, they are hugely popular in the UK. Do you really want a political party telling you that you can’t watch your choice of TV programs or read your choice of magazines? Do you want even more censorship of popular entertainment?

Don’t vote for the BNP – they will ruin your leisure time as well as the country.

Read the full manifesto here

And here is a response from the excellent Nothing British About the BNP

Number of accused extremists rose by half in 2009 (Czech Rep)

The number of people accused in connection with extremism in the Czech Republic last year rose by a half against 2008, according to a report Interior Minister Martin Pecina will submit to the government on Tuesday.

The number of extremist crimes rose by more than one fifth last year, but the share of this type of crime in overall criminality is still minimal and constitutes a mere 0.07 percent, the report says.

The police uncovered 265 criminal offences with an extremist subtext last year, compared with 217 in 2008.

The number of prosecuted persons also rose, from 195 to 293.
The police presidium said previously the higher figures may be due to that the police more focus on these crimes of late.
The perpetrators of these crimes were mainly people aged 21 to 39.

Last year, the police registered a higher number of secondary school and university graduates among the perpetrators for the first time last year, the report says.

It adds, however, that it is not possible to speak about any trends on the basis of the figures.

The report says the activities of leftist extremists unlike rights extremists were only marginal.
The most visible groupings last year were the unregistered National Resistance and the Autonomous Nationalists, the civic association Workers' Youth, and the Workers' Party political party.

The report says the most serious case last year was the arson attack on the house of a Romany family in Vitkov, north Moravia, in which three people were injured.

The most serious injuries were received by a two-year-old girl who suffered third-degree burns to 80 percent of her body.

The four perpetrators of the attack go on trial on May 1.

Prague Monitor

UK 'BREAKING INTERNATIONAL LAW'

The UK is among several European countries defying international rules by returning asylum seekers to Iraq despite continuing violence, a human rights group said.

Amnesty International accused Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden of forcibly repatriating Iraqis to "extremely dangerous" parts of the country - in breach of United Nations guidelines.

The campaign body said there have been more than 100 civilian deaths in the first week of April alone - with religious and ethnic minorities, females and gay men being particularly targeted.

Amnesty is calling for the return of failed asylum-seekers only when the security situation in the whole country has "stabilised".
Its report claims hundreds of thousands of people in minority communities have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the continuing insecurity more than seven years after the US-led invasion. These include thousands of Christians, as well as members of the Sabean-Mandaean religion, Yazidis and women and girls targeted for "un-Islamic" behaviour.

Amnesty said many of those at risk had been killed - including dozens of women murdered in Basra on "moral" grounds, at least 25 men and boys thought to be gay who were killed in February last year, and at least eight Christians killed in Mosul in February during apparent sectarian attacks.

The campaign group said the uncertainty over when a new Iraqi government would be formed had led to the recent increase in attacks.
Amnesty's Middle East director Malcolm Smart said: "Iraqis are still living in a climate of fear seven years after the US-led invasion. The Iraqi authorities could do much more to keep them safe, but over and over they are failing to help the most vulnerable in society.

"The continuing uncertainty as to when a new government will be formed following last month's election could well contribute to a further increase of violent incidents of which civilians are the main victims. The uncertainty is threatening to make a bad situation even worse. Both the Iraqi authorities and the international community must act now to prevent more unnecessary deaths."

In October last year the UK deported 44 failed Iraqi asylum seekers to Baghdad, but the Iraqi authorities allowed only 10 of them to enter the country.

Daily Express

THREE PROSECUTED FOR NAZI PROPAGANDA (Czech Rep.)

The police have accused three men of having shouted neo-Nazi slogans and making the Nazi salute while drunk in a night club last night, regional police spokeswoman Jana Vaclavova told CTK yesterday.The police were tipped by an anonymous witness at about one o'clock after midnight, Jana Vaclavova said.The police did not say whether they were participants in the Saturday march of ultra rightist radicals in Plzen, west Bohemia, dissolved by the local mayor.The men, aged 40, 34 and 19, were accused of the establishment, support to and dissemination of a movement seeking the suppression of rights and freedoms and of breach of the peace.The man aged 34 has also been accused of defamation of nation, race and ethnic group."The police have found that he verbally and later physically attacked a woman, aged 24. He hit her with his fist in her right ear," Vaclavova said.The police detained six persons in connection with the Saturday march in Plzen. They have been accused of effort to curtail the rights and freedoms of other people.They wore or had tattooed forbidden symbols.


Prague Monitor